James Bay

The soulful singer-songwriter returns to his musical roots with the release of his latest EP Oh My Messy Mind. A vivid progression from his previous work, the ‘Wild Love’ hitmaker is about to remind the world why his debut album sold more than half a million copies in the UK and earned him a Critic’s Choice Award and 3 Grammy nominations.

Oh My Messy Mind marks a fresh start for Bay. It’s formulated as a compelling body of work that wears its commercial hat as proudly as his maker once wore his own. With title track Peer Pressure featuring Julia Michaels already topping the charts, the track sets the tone for the EP. But the culmination lies within his new single Bad, a track precision-tooled to get crowds to sing along. Bay tested out the song before mainstream release during his US tour this Spring, garnering acclaim from his army of dedicated fans.

Speaking exclusively to Notion ahead of the release of the EP, Bay admitted that he once again poured his heart into his chords. “I regularly write things down in a stream of consciousness to empty my head. Oh My Messy Mind is a line I wrote on a particularly dark day a little while ago. It seemed to reflect a weight that I felt I was carrying at the time, and that comes back now and again. The songwriting that followed was me looking for a release. With Bad and the other songs on the EP, I wanted to be honest about some of my own stories and other stories I was being pulled into. Bad is a breakup song, it’s just not my break up” the singer-songwriter reminisces.

The additional 2 tracks on the EP Break My Heart Right and Rescue see Bay’s husky-then-keening vocals, singing falsetto over a bluesy, gritty instrumentation with the refreshing tranquility of an artist with at least a decade of notoriety under his belt. James Bay is carving his own niche towards household status.

The singer-songwriter will perform a one-off show today at The Great Escape. You can check out Oh My Messy Mind below.